Alabama-LSU is the biggest game at Bryant-Denny Stadium since ... ?

View full sizeBryant-Denny Stadium was expanded most recently in 2010 and now seats 101,821. The stadium opened in 1929. (UA photo)

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama - Bryant-Denny Stadium has been the scene of big games before, but the biggest of them all is less than two weeks away.

Top-ranked LSU will visit second-ranked Alabama on Nov. 5, and the bigger-than-ever venue isn't big enough to handle the biggest surge of people that is on the way.

"For LSU fans, their record doesn't matter," said Ken Gaddy, director of the Paul W. Bryant Museum and Alabama football historian. "They're always excited and confident when they come to town. It will be a huge day."

How huge?

"There will be a lot of people in town that don't have tickets," Gaddy said. "There's 10,000-plus even for a nonconference game that don't even have tickets. For this game, there will be 20-(thousand) or 30,000 people in town that don't have a ticket. It will be a huge week. Not just a day but a week. ... They'll start coming in (next) Wednesday or Thursday."

So 30,000 people more than the 101,821 who will pack the 82-year-old stadium?

"I'd say more than that," said Clem Gryska, Gaddy's predecessor as the Bryant Museum's director. "I rode around Saturday with my grandson, just looking, and it took me about an hour and a half to get from the stadium to my house in Northport. It was just bumper to bumper, both sides of the street."

It will be the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 regular-season game in the history of the Southeastern Conference, much less the stadium. CBS announced Sunday that it is moving the game to a 7 p.m. kickoff. The game will get a two-week buildup as both teams enjoy bye weeks.

Which game previously has been recognized as the biggest in stadium history?

That's debatable. Until Bryant-Denny Stadium was expanded to 83,818 seats in 1998, most of Alabama's big home games were held at Legion Field in Birmingham. There's a reason why the Crimson Tide won 57 consecutive games in Tuscaloosa between 1963 and 1982.

The Alabama-LSU game will be the ninth game in stadium history to match teams ranked in the Top 10. Only three of those games date before 1999.

The first was in 1964, when third-ranked Alabama defeated ninth-ranked Florida 17-14.

"I remember that game," said Dick Coffee III, president of the Alabama Alumni Association and son of a superfan who hasn't missed an Alabama football game since 1946. "I was just a boy. That was (Joe) Namath vs. (Steve) Spurrier. My dad asked me after the game who the best player on the field was, and I said Steve Spurrier."

Namath was injured, and Steve Sloan came off the bench to lead the Tide to a victory.

Gryska, who played for Alabama in the late 1940s and served for years on coach Paul Bryant's support staff, suggests that the biggest game in Bryant-Denny Stadium history was in 1986, when No. 6 Penn State defeated No. 2 Alabama 23-3. The Nittany Lions went on to win the national championship. Alabama already had nonconference victories over Ohio State and Notre Dame that season.

Coffee's vote goes to another Alabama-LSU game. In 2005, the fourth-ranked Tide lost 16-13 in overtime classic to the fifth-ranked Tigers.

"At least that's the first one that comes to mind," Coffee said. "LSU had JaMarcus Russell; Alabama had DeMeco Ryans."

Gaddy suggests a 2000 game in which Alabama wasn't even ranked.

"Just in a general sense, the first time that Auburn played here was probably the biggest day, with the anticipation and all that leading up to it," Gaddy said. "It wasn't 1 vs. 2, that type of stuff, but just as far as the excitement, the talk, that first Auburn game and really all the Auburn games fall into that kind of category. It's the biggest day just because of the rivalry part of it."

View full sizeAlabama once won 57 consecutive games at Bryant-Denny Stadium. That streak lasted from 1963 through 1982. (The Birmingham News/Mark Almond)

Auburn was ranked No. 18. It was the Tigers' first visit to Tuscaloosa since 1901, and the Tide lost 9-0.

Three big games are quite recent. On its way to the 2009 national championship, third-ranked Alabama defeated ninth-ranked LSU 24-15. Last season, top-ranked Alabama defeated seventh-ranked Florida 31-6, and second-ranked Auburn defeated ninth-ranked Alabama 28-27.

A No. 1 team has visited Bryant-Denny Stadium only once previously. That was in 2003, when Oklahoma defeated unranked Alabama 20-13.

"That was a huge weekend for us at the museum," Gaddy said. "Oklahoma and their fans had never been here. It was a good game. It came down to the wire - not one of those changing-channels-at-halftime games. They had a fake punt that kind of turned the game for them. It was good drama beyond. Alabama was trying to move up. Even losing, I think, the way the game played out helped gain respect."

Gaddy expects brisk business at the museum next week. LSU and Tennessee weeks always are big.

"Auburn fans don't normally come," he said. "It'll certainly be a top 10 day, but A-Day is where the record days come in."